


The Machine Stops

by strcwberryvivi (lovelcce)



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Everyone Dies, Alternate Universe - Future, Gen, I'm Sorry, The Machine Stops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 07:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20774885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelcce/pseuds/strcwberryvivi
Summary: —in which Haseul and her daughter, Yeojin, deal with the side effects of the advancement—





	The Machine Stops

Imagine a small room, furnished only with a soft chair and a hanging overhead light. There is one table, upon which sits a singular book. The walls are covered in buttons, one for every imaginable thing. This round knob brings water. This one some food. This one brings a bed, and this one brings a shower. In the chair sits a woman, she’s neither very old nor very young. Her hair’s dark and brittle, but she seems content in a way. The woman has a lecture to teach in an hour, and for now she sits and listens and shares her ideas. There is the constant noise of people talking and talking and talking, but the woman is the only one here. Everyone is connected by the Machine.

There’s a soft chime, not particularly disruptive, but the woman grumbles to herself as she turns to press a button.

“Yes?” The woman asks.

“It’s me.” A voice responds, and the woman’s face clears of any ill feelings. “Yeojin. Can you talk for a moment?”

“I’m really rather busy.” The woman says, looking back towards the board of knobs where voices keep pouring and pouring out.

“This will only take a moment, Mother.” Yeojin says, and the woman sighs.

The woman presses a knob, and the noise in the room stops. It’s deathly quiet, and the woman hates it. A soft blue glow emits from a screen, and the outline of a girl can be seen.

“Yes, Yeojin?”

“I want you to come visit me.” Yeojin says, and the woman frowns.

“What?”

“Come visit me.”

The woman is conflicted. Yeojin was the last of her children, and the woman was very fond of her. But Yeojin was also inclined to trouble, if this were any indication. The woman did not want to visit.

“But why?” The woman says.

“I want to see you. Talk to you.”

“But we’re talking now. I can see you just fine.” The woman says, and imagines that Yeojin would now be frowning herself.

“I don’t want to talk to you through the machine.” Yeojin says. “I want to see you, Mother.”

“I really don’t see why-“

“Please.”

“I’m really rather busy, Yeojin.” The woman says, leaning back further into her chair as if hoping to be swallowed up. “I have a lecture in an hour, and then I plan to sleep.”

“What about after?”

“Well, I’ll probably share some ideas…” The woman trailed off, before starting. “But I can’t visit.”

Yeojin hangs up.

The woman tries to call again, but there is no reply. Yeojin must have went into silence. The woman turns her own silence off, and the flood of voices can be heard again. She prepares for her lecture.

“Haseul,” A voice breaks through. “Do you have any ideas to share?”

“Not right now. But I did hear a very interesting one a few moments ago.”

“Come visit me.” Yeojin says, a few months later, though Haseul doesn’t really understand the concept of months. “You have no lecture today. But I must talk with you. Not through the machine.”

“Yeojin, I’m very busy.” Haseul says again. “And we’re talking now.”

“Mother, you practically worship the machine. I’m surprised you don’t pray to it every night. And, I have news to share with you.” Yeojin says.

“News? What news?” Haseul says, her face brightening. She hoped that this was a reversal of the last news. Yeojin had applied to become a mother herself, but the Machine did not want to spread Yeojin’s radical ways and had denied her request.

“I plan to go to the surface.” Yeojin said.

Haseul laughed dryly. “Why would you ever do that?”

“Just please…” Yeojin says. “Come visit me.”

The call ends.

The woman stands, and presses a knob that’s slightly dirty from disuse. The wall swings open, and there’s a long tunnel that twists out of sight. Haseul doesn’t remember the hallway stretching so far the last time she left. Of course, that was when Yeojin was a young girl. After birth, Haseul had been told that she need not be involved in her children’s lives, but she had always made a point to read to them once a week and so forth. But she hadn’t left her own room in years now, and was quite content with that. Haseul grabbed a book from the table in her room, kissing its cover softly. It is the manual for the Machine. The instructions for every scenario is contained in this book, which is why there is no need for other forms of literature.

Clutching the book in her arms, Haseul steps into the doorway. She takes a deep breath, and takes another step. A sweat breaks over her body as she stares into the hallway, unable to see the very end. Haseul knows that at the end is a lever to summon a car that will take her to the airships, but she finds herself frozen. Naseua rolls through her stomach, and she stumbles back into her room, collapsing on her chair.

“I cannot come visit.” Haseul says into the machine, Yeojin just on the other side. “I am unwell.”

A mechanical arm drops from the ceiling a second later, hold a syringe of medicine that Haseul gladly takes. Yeojin must have contacted her doctor.

“Why do you want to go to the surface?” Haseul asks a week later, and wonders why they even keep track of the days anymore. There is no true day or night underground.

“There are so many ideas up there.” Yeojin says.

“There’s nothing up there.” Haseul replies. “Everything died.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean the ideas died with them. There are sunrises and sunsets. Plains and mountains. Ideas and ideas and ideas.”

It’s another month before Haseul tries again. She clutches the manual in her arms as a sense of protection, and opens the door. The hallway stretches, but Haseul closes her eyes and walks out. The door shuts behind her.

At the end of the hall, there’s a lever on the wall that summons a car. It’ll take Haseul to the airship. And while these are often no longer required, it has become easier to maintain the system rather then attempting to alter the machine to get rid of them. So, Haseul stand on the platform. There are mainly young men taking this flight, and even then only seven more people. Haseul knows that’s because they’re moving to inhabit rooms left by those who have been granted Euthanasia.

The airship is exactly the same, and yet completely different from Haseul’s room. All of the passengers are led to individual rooms with one cot and nothing else. There are blinds over the windows, left behind by a past era. Haseul has never seen the sunlight. It’s dark when the plane takes off, and the passengers are shrouded in darkness. One the young men complains, and the hostess apologizes and turns on the lights. In her own room, Haseul looks out the window at the earth below. There is a large expanse of land below her.

“Excuse me,” She says, stopping the hostess as she passes. “Do you know what that white stuff is?”

The hostess looks out the window, at the white substance on top of the mountains. “I’m afraid I do not. But I do know that this region once-“

Haseul shakes her head, and the hostess stops talking immediately. Haseul already knows what this place used to be, she heard a lecture about it once.

“There are no ideas here.” She mutters, dropping the blinds back into place over the Himalayas.

She tries again a few hours later. There are the ruins of a city below her, and anyone by today’s standards would be impressed by the sheer magnificence of the over grown vegetation creeping across the metal and concrete. Haseul frowns, and closes the blind once more.

Yeojin’s room is exactly alike Haseul’s room across the world. There are no differences.

“I’ve come all this way to see you.” Haseul said, crossing her arms while still holding the manual in her hand. “Now, what do you want to tell me?”

“I have been threatened with homelessness.” Yeojin says matter-of-factly, no signs of remorse or fear on her face. “And I am glad that I have been.”

Haseul sits down in her daughter’s chair, her legs feeling like jelly.

“I have been to the surface, Mom. It’s gorgeous up there. But first, how I got there. First, I paced in my room. And then just outside in the hallway. I needed to think. So I walked. And then I walked some more. And I had a realization. When the machine was first built, there was a way to bring in air from the surface. This is before our current air system was installed, I heard of it in a lecture. And so, there must still be those holes. So, I looked. Everything down here is so bright. All the time, there is light and light and light. And then I saw it, Mom. A hole in the hallway completely devoid of light. I had found my tunnel.

“First, I stuck my arm in, and waved it around. Then, both arms, and then my head. And it was so quiet in there. Did you know the machine hums? It’s constant, surrounding us always. But we never hear it because it’s all we’ve ever known. So I came back to my room, delighted that I had even gotten my head into this duct. But I was still unsatisfied. So I requested an air filter from the machine, and I managed to fit entirely inside this passage. There was a ladder, and so I climbed and I climbed up it. And at the top, there was a door. A door directly outside.” Yeojin pauses here for effect as her mother puts her head in her hands. “I opened the door.”

Haseul lets out a soft groan, pressing her palms against her eyes like she can’t bear to hear anymore.

“And I fell. Directly onto a pipe. I was dangling on this pipe, and I knew I could either let go and fall and become a pile of mush. Or I could jump. And then, I would find another handhold to grab, or I would fall and become a pile of mush. With nothing to lose, I jumped. And there was another handle. So, slowly, I pulled myself up again to the open doorway. The air was rushing outside, a loud noise against the silence. It was beautiful. There was grass and hills rolling for miles and miles.

“And I left. But the air stung my lungs and it felt hard to breathe, so I would breathe in gulps of air from the doorway. My mask hung suspended in the air, out of my reach, but I didn’t care. I walked, and there was this dew on the grass that made my hands wet when I touched it. I went up a hill, but couldn’t finish it and rolled to the bottom. And I tried that over and over and over. I had almost made it to the top when I heard the most terrible noise. My mask had fallen. The machine had repaired itself, and now my air supply was gone. But, I found myself only bothered by this. I didn’t want to leave. But, as I turned back to the hole, something grabbed my legs. A rope of some kind that I have never seen before, wrapping around my whole body. I tried to run, but it held tight. I began to scream and cry for help, anyone or anything to save me. And then I saw her. Another girl, running towards me.

“I didn’t have a permit to be outside, Mom. That’s why I have been threatened with Homelessness.” Yeojin says, looking away from her mother, who now stares up at her.

“But what of the girl?” Haseul asks. “Who was she?”

“I don’t know.” Yeojin says. “But she was Homeless, and I wish nothing more than to be her.”

“Don’t say such things!” Haseul whispers harshly.

“Against the machine?” Yeojin asks. “I knew you worshipped it, but never did I think you’d think of it like a God, Mother!”

“I-There is no such thing as religion anymore.” Haseul says.

Yeojin takes a moment to calm herself. “There are people on the surface, Mom. And one of them came to save me. To help me, just because I asked. And she paid for it with her life.”

“Her life?”

“I watched the rope rip her throat out, and then I awoke in my room, the medical arm attending me.” Yeojin says, crouching in front of her mother. “I have never seen a place so filled with ideas before, Mom.”

That’s the last they talk of it. Haseul returns to her own room, and life continues on. Ideas are shared, meals are eaten.

It’s five years before anything changes, but it defiantly does. First, they bring back religion. A celebrated lecturer suggests that they all should worship the Machine. It gives life and food and shelter. It helps and protects like a benevolent God. Haseul is thankful to be able to worship the Machine in public now.

Then, they get rid of the air filter masks. A celebrated lecturer says there is nothing new to learn from the surface, and that we have no need for these masks anyways. So, it is done.

Yeojin is brought back from the other side of the world, and now lives only a few levels away. She does not ask Haseul to visit.

The music is the first thing to break, and Haseul is disrupted from peaceful ideas as there’s a loud screech in the middle of Contemporary 67. So, she complains to the Department of Repairs. And they says the machine is working on it. For weeks, they all complain and complain and complain. But nothing gets done. So, suddenly the screech in Contemporary 67 is no longer a disturbance, but merely a new verse. And so life continues.

Then, meals begin to look colorless. At least, more so than usual. So, they complain. And nothing gets done. So the people adapt once again, as they have been adapting to the machine for centuries.

And now the machine makes a terrible noise. And Haseul calls Yeojin to complain for a bit and maybe exchange some ideas.

“I really don’t get it. I’ve complained and complained to the Department of Repairs, and they just say they’re working on it. Or that they’ll send along my complaint to high authorities when it’s my turn in line.” Haseul huffs, and Yeojin’s only silent for a moment before she exchanges one last idea.

“The machine stops.” The girl says, and the call ends.

Haseul has asked for Euthanasia a few times by now, but every time she has been denied. The death rate must never exceed the birth rate. So, she waits.

Haseul’s just finished a lecture when the machine stops. She waits for the applause, but when nothing happens she grumbles and calls a friend to complain about the younger generation’s audacity. There is no response. She must be in silence. She calls another friend. There is no reply. Haseul frowns, and the light in her room dies as the medical arm falls from the ceiling. Haseul cries out, dropping to the floor in surprise. She grabs for her manual, and hold it against her chest. Is this what Yeojin meant by the machine stops?

Haseul opens the door to her room, and finds the hallway filled with people and people and people. She sees throngs of bodies crawling over each other, pushing each other off platforms and stampeding others. She’s one of the few to stay frozen in her doorway.

Haseul pulls back, closes the door and drops to her knees. She lets sobs rack through her body, and curls around the manual. She wait until there is no more sound coming from outside her door.

Outside, there is only death. She looks at what the chaos has left behind, before her eyes fall on a familiar figure.

“Yeojin?” She asks, dropping her book and crawling over the bodies towards her daughter. There’s a horrible red liquid coming from her stomach and arms and chest as she grabs her mother’s hands.

“There’s something I must tell you.” She said hoarsely.

“Is this the end, Yeojin?” Haseul mutters into her daughter’s hair, tears forming in her eyes once again.

“Only for us, and defiantly for me.” Yeojin smiles.

“The surface people,” Haseul whispers.

“They’ll survive.”

“What of the machine? Will they use it?”

“I think they’ll have learned what we did not.” Yeojin says, and her breathing gets a little shallower. “But I had one last idea, Mom.”

“And what was that?”

“It was the idea of Love.” The girl smiles, and Haseul remembers when she first began to walk, her teeth having just started growing in then. Her hair had been in pigtails that day. “We never lost it, but I think we forgot the meaning of the word.”

“Love?”

“It’s the bond between parents. Between mothers and daughters. Mothers and sons.” Yeojin says faintly. “I just wish we had remembered the word sooner, Mom.”

And the sky opens, a airplane crashing through layer and layers of chaos. For a moment, the sun shines upon the two women, a mother and daughter. The see the world around them, what the machine left behind in the forms of their friends and neighbor’s bodies. And then they look up at the sky, just for a moment, before the impact, and see the clouds against a bright blue sky.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry...


End file.
